


For the want of a crow

by the_alchemist



Category: Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: What if Fitz didn't find time to rescue Motley, but left her to die? How might fate have worked itself out without her aid in befriending Heeby? With more pain and greater sacrifice, perhaps: but could those things not lead to deeper love?A canon divergent version of part of Assassin's Fate, beginning in Chapter with Rapskal's secret visit to Fitz: no longer to give him the dragon silver, but for a darker purpose …
Relationships: FitzChivalry Farseer/The Fool, Rapskal and Heeby, The Fool and Heeby
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	For the want of a crow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peregrinations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peregrinations/gifts).



> Thanks, as always, to my awesome beta, Z.
> 
> Content note: not everyone ends the story with the same number of limbs they had at the beginning. There's some injury detail.

_A youth with a birthmark on his face, the colour of an overripe berry. He sits at a crossroads. Children gather around him, throwing first insults, then clods of earth. One girl picks up a stone and hurls it toward the youth's face. He holds up his hands to deflect it, but other children are throwing stones too now. His skin blossoms into bruises and blood. The children laugh._

_There is a wolf in this dream. He charges at the children, growling, making them run off in all directions. He licks the youth's wounds and carries him off on his back, taking the right fork in the road._

_Two weeks later, I have the same dream again. This time the wolf pauses only for a moment to watch the horrible scene. He does not intervene, but instead runs down the left fork in the road, leaving the youth to his fate. I want to look away, but I cannot, and I see the youth's face torn to a bloody pulp._

_I back off, and as is the way of dreams, find myself backing upward into the air, the landscape spreading out below me like a map. The left and right forks in the road lead to the same place, and the two wolves meet. The youth walks beside the one from the first dream. The one from the second dream is limping. Something terrible has happened to his front paw: I see blood, torn flesh, and the white gleam of bone._

Bee Farseer's dream journal

On a day of gentle sunshine, I awoke from an afternoon nap to find myself alone. Feeling befogged and listless, I decided to take a short walk around the city, hoping that it would enliven me.

The shades of the Elderlings rippled all around, their voices at first an indistinguishable susurration which I almost found soothing. But as I turned into a district I had not yet explored, they became louder, and I began to catch snatches of this and that, of ancient gossip, an argument, a woman weeping. I deadened my sense of them, trying to ground myself in the stone and sky of the present day, blocking them out to marvel at what they had left behind. The street had been one of private dwellings, I decided – less grand than the palace and other public buildings, but built on a monumental enough scale to accommodate dragons as honoured guests.

A sudden surge of sorrow as I imagined exploring this place with Bee, thought of all she would never see, never know: her life had been such a small one, lived tightly and close to home. A cub's instinct to stay close to the den, perhaps, and yet her journal showed her love for all things strange and beautiful and other.

I wrapped myself in my sorrow, mourning her sense of wonder, tattered to pieces with all the rest. So it was that I didn't hear the footsteps until he was a few strides away. I groped to strengthen my walls, but then realised this was no ghost. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tall, armoured figure, and recognised Rapskal. He quickly fell in beside me. 'Prince FitzChivalry,' he said, then, without further preamble. 'I wish you to come with me.'

I stopped and turned to face him, swaying a little, and exaggerating it. Let him think me weaker than I was, though in truth I judged myself too enervated to withstand the attach of a determined child, let alone this Elderling soldier. I regarded him for a moment, unfocusing my eyes, while I took stock of my meagre resources. My daggers would not withstand his Elderling armour. I carried poison, of course, but how would I–

'It is in your interest to come with me quickly,' he said. 'And in Lady Amber's interest even more so.'

I blinked, suddenly alarmed. 'Lady Amber? Where is she?'

He ignored my question. 'She will be all right if you come with me,' he said. 'I cannot promise what will happen otherwise, although I will try to keep her alive.'

He took my upper arm in a steely grip. I did not struggle, as I knew it would be futile: his strength was augmented by an Elderling gauntlet of some dark metal, and I was still weak. Instead – and feeling a coward as I did so – I shouted for help. But my voice reverberated around the empty street. I had strayed far from the inhabited part of the city.

He pulled me forward and I stumbled, then started walking alongside him. I had little choice, and besides, if he really did have the Fool, then I wanted to know where he was being kept. 'Where are you taking me?' I growled. 'Where's Lady Amber?'

He was silent as he pulled me up the dozen steps of a colonnade villa, so I tried a different tack. 'This is scandalous. We are emissaries of the Six Duchies. King Reyn and Queen Malta will hear of this.'

He took me through the human-sized side-door of a vast, colonnaded villa and along a hallway to a cloistered courtyard, open to the sky. In one corner, a scarlet dragon was coiled up, fast asleep.

'Malta is not my queen,' he said, stopping, and dropping his grip on my arm. Beneath his helmet, an incongruous smile spread across his scaly face. 'I recognise one Queen alone: my crimson lady, my scarlet darling, she of the dark wings and golden eyes. It is for her I do this thing.'

The dragon raised her massive head a little, opened one gummy eye, made a sound that might have been a burp, then wiggled her bottom to get comfortable again and returned to sleep.

I seized Rapskal by both arms, almost shaking him. 'What thing?'

But he shook me off and headed down a spiral staircase. I had little choice but to follow.

It took me a moment to recognise that we were in an Elderling dungeon, beneath the villa that Rapskal had claimed as his own. There were four rooms – cells, I realised – opening into a central space, and visible from there, since instead of a wall adjoining it, there were bars of silvery filigree. Each cell contained a low bed, a cupboard, a chamber pot and a washbasin with a spout coming out of the wall. There was something odd about the design of the furniture: as though its makers had tried hard to make them rough and functional, but couldn't quite help letting their skill show through perfection of proportion and curve.

Three of the four cells were empty. The Fool was in the fourth, each of his wrists and angled manacled to one of the four bedposts, through holes clearly designed for that purpose. 'No,' I hissed. His eyes fluttered open and he made a horrible choking sound. He was gagged too, I saw.

Instinctively, I reached out to him with my mind – not with the Skill, not quite, and certainly not with the Wit, but with some thread of – of love, I want to say – with that thread that had bound us once and that I thought was gone. And for a moment I knew his abject terror, but then it was crowded out by the clamour of the jail's bygone inhabitants, a horrible cacophony: screaming, moaning, shouting, weeping; some atavistic drunkard slurring what could only have been a ribald song.

I slammed my walls fully back into place and focused again on Rapskal. 'What in El's name are you doing?' I threw myself against the filigree door to the Fool's cell, vainly rattling the bars. 'This is an outrageous way to treat an emissary, to treat anyone–'

'It is an entirely appropriate way to treat a thief,' said Rapskal, turning his back to me and getting something out of a cupboard, 'If anything, it is too lenient. I intend no punishment other than to take back what he stole.'

My mind scrambled to understand his words. 'To take back–'

But Rapskal had turned back to me and he was holding a small hatchet. At once I understood, and at once I acted. I lunged at him, daggers drawn, going for the flash of red scaling beneath his helmet, but he knocked me aside with such force that I tripped and fell, and must have hit my head, because the next thing I knew I was on a bed in my own cell – the one facing the Fool's.

I ran at once to the door, ignoring the pain in my head, throwing my whole weight against it, though of course it was locked.

'Fool!' I said. 'Beloved!' I wanted him to know I was here, useless though I was. And oh, he was Beloved to me then. The years we were apart, the quarrels, all my doubts about 'Lady Amber' were as nothing. He was my boyhood friend again, and he was frightened and I could not go to him. Someone wanted to hurt him, and I could not stop them.

Rapskal was already in with the Fool, leaning over him. He straightened and glanced in my direction. 'Good,' he said, turning back. 'You're awake. Once I've taken his hand–'

'No!' My rage threatened to overcome me, but I controlled myself. This was not a problem that could be overcome with force – I had to reason with him. 'No,' I repeated. 'You have it all wrong. The Skill – the silver, you call it – has been on his – her – hand for a long, long time. You saw his touch on Malta's neck. You heard–'

'Enough.' He raised his hand, turning fully toward me. 'Lady Amber has confessed everything. There was indeed silver on her hand, but it was taken by the people who took your daughter. He came here to replace it.'

The truth. How had he wrung it from her? My legs went weak as I gripped the bars. 'What did you do to her?'

His tone was calm, almost conciliatory. 'Nothing at all,' he said. 'I am not a torturer, and I did not need to be. Once I tied her down, she admitted everything, babbling it out like a child.' He could not hide the disdain in his voice. 'I told you. I am here only to take what belongs to Heeby and the other dragons. After that, you will both be free to do as you wish, but I would advise you to leave Kelsingra as soon as you can. Once the truth comes out … well, the other dragons – and their keepers – are less inclined to mercy than my Heeby.'

My Fool moaned.

'I'm here,' I cried, uselessly.

'Indeed you are,' said Rapskal. 'After I have taken his hand, I will unlock the door to your cell. All know that you are a talented healer. You will find everything you need in the cupboard by his bed. A person can live well with only one hand.'

There was an odd waver in his voice. Uncertainty? I revised my estimate of his age downward and seized on that crack in his self-assurance.

'You don't have to do this,' I said. 'There's a better way. A better way to take back the silver.'

He hesitated. 'There is?' He sounded hopeful.

'There must be,' I continued. 'Let me out and we can–'

But he shook his head firmly, the gesture boyish but his voice taking on steely gravity again. 'Enough,' he said.

'I'm not–'

I'm not a healer, I had been going to say. But the hatchet came down and the Fool screamed, long and shrill until his voice cracked and he choked and sputtered on whatever was gagging him. I would be a healer. I would have to be. 'Beloved–'

Rapskal had turned away almost before it was done and seemed to be shaking as he came to unlock my door – had his red scales paled to dark pink beneath that massive helmet? He held the sad little burden of blood and bone and silvered skin between thumb and forefinger.

I grabbed his arm through the bars, just above the gauntlet, but he only shrugged. 'You can fight me if you wish, but you will not win, and your friend will bleed to death.'

I let go, defeated.

Decades ago, Chade told me there would be less blood than one might expect. The blood vessels shrink in on themselves, he had said. The important thing is to stop the wound going bad. I remember asking him why an assassin needed to learn field surgery. I remember hoping I would never need it: using my knife to cure scared me far more than using it to kill. Yet his words stayed with me. You need to pull the remaining skin over the exposed flesh and bone, he said. If there isn't enough skin, you may need to cut more flesh away.

I unbound the Fool and ungagged him. His blind eyes stared at me unnervingly. He did not speak.

Chade had made me practice on animals: dead pigs bound for the kitchen; once, a living dog whose forepaw had been caught in a trap. The wound went bad, and she died in agony a week later.

I put that memory aside and firmly brought my mind back to the task at hand.

'Fool?' I said. 'Fool?' He said nothing but made a drawn-out 'ah' sound as the fingers of his right hand crept down his left forearm, nearly all the way to the ragged wound at the end. I cupped the back of his head in my hand, stroking him. 'You know what I have to do, and I fear it will hurt. There's some willowbark here. Nothing to make tea I'm afraid, but you should chew it. Here.' I put it in his mouth and he bit down hard, splintering it. All to the good, I supposed. More of the essence would get to him that way.

Cover the wound and get to a real surgeon if you can, Chade had said. Better take a little more time than botch the job yourself. But sometimes there is no choice.

I could wait, but who knew when Rapskal would be back, and who knew if he'd let us out even then?

Sometimes there is no choice.

I brushed a wisp of hair away from his forehead. 'I love you.' I had been going to say it would be all right, but I caught myself as the lie lingered on my lips, and the truth slipped out instead. He did not respond or give any sign of having heard me.

I closed my eyes for a moment, finding the quiet place that such work needed.

I do not wish to remember how I held him down, straddling him as he tried to buck and squirm. I do not wish to remember piercing his flesh. I do not wish to remember it, and I will not write it. It is a private thing, and obscene, to transform in your mind's eye your loved one into meat, a task to be accomplished; a will to be overridden.

Afterwards, I sat up in the bed, back against the wall, with him curled in my arms, his bandaged arm cradled against his chest.

'Talk to me, Fool,' I remember saying. He did not answer.

I called him by every name I knew for him and remembered with fondness his many personae, my irritation with them melting away as I recalled Lord Golden's generosity and genial nature; Lady Amber's wit, grace and beauty. To lose him would not be to lose one friend, but many, and a part of myself also.

'Talk to me, Fitz,' I said.

But he did not answer to that or to any name.

I began to fear that this time it had all been too much, and his mind was gone. 'Beloved.' I started to stroke his hair again. 'Take your time then,' I said. 'Don't speak yet if you don't want to. But come back to me when you can.'

Without him, I would not be strong enough to do what had to be done. Would not–

Suddenly she – undoubtedly she was Lady Amber now – sat upright, and turned as though looking at me, her blind eyes seeming to whirl with a new brightness. What was this? A fever?

'Something has happened,' she said.

I was as gentle as I could be. 'Yes,' I said. 'Rapskal cut off your hand. But it's all right–'

She waved her other hand to silence me. 'Yes, yes – I'm not stupid – I remember – and it's not all right, incidentally – but something _else_ has happened.'

I tried to adjust to this sudden change in demeanour. 'Something else? What?'

She frowned. 'I don't know,' she said quietly. 'But something. Someone. I feel …' But she shook her head. 'I don't know.'

Gingerly, being careful of her left arm, she swung her legs down over the side of the bed. But just then, there was the sound of reinforced boots clattering down the spiral stairs and Rapskal burst in.

'Heeby,' he said, then caught his breath. 'Heeby wants to see you.'

Behind my back, I gripped a dagger, but Lady Amber grasped my arm. 'No,' she said, and stood up, unsteadily but with firm purpose, straightening her silvery grey skirts. 'Take me to her.'

Her tone was imperious, and I was afraid of Rapskal's reaction. But he only nodded and unlocked the door. Amber felt her way past him toward the staircase, but then groped for the bannister rope with a hand that wasn't there and hesitated. Then she raised her chin, picked up her skirts and started to climb.

'I'm right here,' I whispered. I would catch her if she fell.

The red dragon – small by the scale of her kind, massive by any other – paced too and fro in the courtyard. When she saw us, she gave a little huff, and flapped her wings, apparently in excitement.

'Lady Amber!' she said.

Rapskal gave an audible gasp, and I realised that I had never heard Heeby speak before.

Before I could stop her, Amber strode directly towards Heeby, with no hesitation or feeling her way. Heeby lowered her head to nudge and snuff at her. There was no aggression in it, and I let out a relieved breath

'Thank you,' said the dragon. 'Thank you.'

'For what?' said Amber neutrally.

'For giving me your lovely silver hand, and your memories and your cleverness and _you_.' She gave a little whinny of joy, and gently nudged Amber with her nose again.

'I didn't–' began Amber, but Heeby interrupted her.

'Will you grow another soon?' she said. 'I hope it didn't hurt.'

Behind me, Rapskal coughed, perhaps embarrassed.

To my surprise, Amber spoke gently. 'No,' she said. 'No, I can't grow another. That's not how humans work. And yes, it hurt very much. It still hurts.'

'Oh.' Heeby drew back, apparently thinking it through. It was several moments before she spoke again. 'I'm sorry about that,' she said. Then her voice brightened: 'But I'm all the more grateful to you for giving it to me. I owe you a debt now, and to have a dragon in your debt is no small thing.' She spoke rather grandly, as the other dragons did.

Amber was thoughtful. 'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, I suppose you do.'

'Perhaps I could help you make a new hand!' said Heeby. 'A nice red scaly one with claws and things. Would you like that? I think I know how to do that now I've got a bit of your cleverness. To control it I mean, not like with Rapskal, who just happened.' She looked over my shoulder at him. 'Although he came out very nice, of course,' she added.

'Very nice,' murmured Amber. Then: 'Beautiful Lady Heeby. May I have some time to think over what I should like to ask for as the boon you most graciously agreed to grant me?'

'Yes, yes, yes,' said Heeby, excited. 'You may. You must! A boon! What a lovely word. Boooon.' She seemed giddy.

'Thank you, Scarlet Empress,' said Amber, managing more more-or-less graceful curtsey. 'Then I shall return to my quarters in the palace.'

But she only made it a couple of steps before she swayed, and her legs seemed to buckle and she fainted.

'Oh! Oh!' Heeby sounded distressed. 'Oh, I can feel her now. It _does_ hurt. Poor Amber! Help her at once, Rapskal. Tie her onto my back directly and I can carry her to the palace. Oh dear, so much pain in such a tiny being. How can she stand it?'

Rapskal and I walked back together, both looking straight ahead. A tense silence persisted until we turned the corner into one of the more familiar streets. Then, Rapskal coughed. 'Are you angry with me?' he said.

'Of course.'

'Will you try to kill me?'

'I don't know.' Now the initial crisis was over, my more important revenge loomed larger in my mind.

'What will you tell Malta and Reyn?'

'That's up to Amber.'

'I suppose so.' He sounded a boy again, and miserable, but I did not let myself feel pity. 'Heeby really liked her,' he said.

I didn't reply. I was sick of hearing his voice. Sick of him.

'It's all right,' he continued. 'She can like other people. She's a dragon, and dragons give their favour where they please …'

I let him go on. He seemed to be mostly speaking to himself anyway. I didn't care. I was too busy weighing up what had happened, the good against the bad, and hating myself for being so calculating. The Fool's hand in exchange for a dragon's favour. How would that affect our mission? Would Heeby give us back Skill silver to replace that she had taken? If so, what could we do with it? Could she carry us to Clerres? Raze it to the ground as the dragons had razed so much of Chalced? My heart exalted in the prospect. Except. _Except._ What if … But the Fool _wasn't_ right. Bee was gone, tattered away in the Skill current. There was no chance she was alive. Dreams were just dreams now, and hope just a new kind of torture. But what if I were wrong? I could not tolerate even the smallest chance of her burning along with the rest.

When I got back to our rooms, Amber was lying on the bed, still dressed, her bandaged forearm laid on her chest. 'Fitz–' She sounded drained.

I sat beside her. 'What do you need?' I asked. 'Shall I send for some willowbark tea? For Spark?'

She shook her head. 'No-one else, not yet. I need to think. We must work out how to turn this to our advantage. And a secret shared quickly becomes no secret at all.'

'You … don't sound too bad,' I said.

She laughed. There was no humour in it. 'Oh, I am very, very bad indeed,' she said. 'But complaining won't bring back anything I have lost. And planning might help us bring back the only one of them that matters.'

'Bee,' I said. I hadn't the heart to go through the argument again. Besides, I had enough uncertainty to be uncomfortable with any plan that involved destroying Clerres without at least looking for her.

'Bee,' she confirmed. I noticed that I didn't bristle when she referred to my daughter as something _she_ had lost. My daughter. _Our_ daughter. I tried it out, and somehow the thought no longer appalled me. Our daughter. Molly's and mine and the Fool's. The gods knew I had accepted stranger things as true. I had become him and he had become me: there was no closeness greater than that. Stranger perhaps to think he could _not_ in some sense be co-father to my child. She had received so little love in her short life: who was I to deny her one bit of it?

'Will you run me a bath?' Amber asked. 'Hot water will help me think.'

'Of course.'

I went to the other room and placed my palm against the panel that caused hot water to spring straight from a spout in the wall. I thought for a moment, then selected the panels for rose and lavender oil. I went back to the bed to sit beside Amber while it ran.

'You need a proper healer,' I said.

She sighed. 'I need many things, and so do you,' she said. 'But there isn't a healer here, and I don't think you're in any state to go through the Skill pillars to find me one.'

'I suppose not.'

We each moved closer to each other at the same time, so our arms were touching. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I relaxed down so our heads were touching.

'I should take another look at your– at the wound then.'

She wrinkled her nose in displeased resignation. 'Bath first,' she said. 'It will help me endure your poking _and_ help me think.'

I listened to the running water for a few moments. A disquieting idea was forming in my mind. 'Are you finding it _difficult_ to think?'

'Of course,' she said. 'Have you forgotten what pain is like? Don't you recall what abject terror does to a person, not just for hours after, but days and weeks and years?'

'I haven't forgotten.' I put my hand on her thigh. A gesture of comfort, at least in intent. When we were boys it would have been an easy thing, beautiful but unremarkable. But I had been a man for many decades and she was– yes, I was certain that in every way that mattered, the legs beneath her grey silk skirts were a woman's legs. And this was not the time to untangle what that meant.

'I haven't forgotten,' I said again. 'It's just– Oh, never mind.'

She sighed. 'Come on Fitz. Out with it.'

I tried again. 'It's just Heeby said something about taking … what was it? Not just your hand and the silver, but your memories and your cleverness. What did she mean?'

Amber paused for a moment. I heard the water sound become softer and higher as the bath began to fill. 'I'm not sure,' she said. 'But both of us have seen how a dragon – a stone dragon, at least – can devour memories. I'm not aware of anything missing, but I suppose I wouldn't be.' She gave a muted laugh.

If that was all, maybe it wasn't so bad. But Heeby had seemed so different from the previous times I'd seen her. More intelligent. More capable of reasoning.

Then Amber laughed properly. 'Oh Fitz – I can tell you're sitting there trying to work out how to tactfully ask me if she took some of my cleverness. I expect she has, but I've always had plenty of it and to spare. I'm sure many will say it's improved me to shed a bit.'

I laughed too then and for a moment it was easy again, and I turned my head and my lips touched her cheek and maybe it was a kiss but whatever it was, it made things not easy again, and besides, the bath must have been full, so I got up to turn it off.

When I got back she was reaching to unlace her bodice and I noticed a moment before she did that she was reaching with a hand that wasn't there. And she swore, but that was all right because it was better than her crying and we stared at each other for a moment.

'Will you help me?' she asked neutrally. Then: 'Oh!' She jerked upright.

'What is it?'

'Heeby,' she replied. 'Heeby wants me. Needs me. Now.'

'How do you–'

'She talks to me Fitz, but now isn't the time to explain. She wants you too. I'll take you. Hurry, Fitz. Find me a glove.'

'A glove?'

'There's one in my bag. The blue one will be best.'

So I ran to get it.

'Help me, Fitz.' The glove was too small to go over her bandaged wrist.

'But why?'

'Will it stretch? Because I don't want anyone to see. No. I see it won't stretch enough. Cut it a bit at the wrist to make the opening bigger.'

I humoured her, slitting the leather with a dagger. 'Why don't you want anyone to see?'

'Let me feel it. Yes. That's better. I don't know I just don't. Find something to stuff the fingers with. A handkerchief will do, or two maybe. Maybe not telling will give us some sort of strategic advantage over Rapscal. Whatever he said about recognising no Queen but Heeby, I think he's scared the others will find out what he did.'

A surge of anger at the Elderling General. 'He didn't look scared to me.'

'I can sense him Fitz. Do you have that handkerchief? Let me feel. I can sense Heeby, and through her I can sense him too. More in the thumb please. Besides, it's embarrassing. Right. Good. Put it on for me, will you? Ah–' The last was a moan of pain as I stretched the slit, stuffed glove over the bandages. It looked … sort of like a hand if you didn't look to closely?

' _Embarrassing_?' I said.

He felt it critically with the hand he had left. 'It'll have to do. I'll cover it with a cloak.' He groped and found the cloak, which was draped over a chair. 'Follow me.'

I had no choice but to do so. He walked confidently again, almost as though he were sighted. Was it that he knew the palace corridors now, or was it his sense of Heeby leading him to her.

'What do you mean "embarrassing"?' I trotted after him.

'Think about it, Fitz. How would you feel if one evening you had to turn up at the dinner table with one hand fewer than you had previously?'

'I don't know. I'd be in a lot of pain, I suppose.'

'But there's nothing you can do about the pain. This way.' He turned a corner and found a staircase I didn't know, groping for the bannister. 'But at least you can control who you tell and when and how. At least you can stop everyone from asking stupid questions and making you tell them over and over again what happened until it's seared into your mind and you can't think of anything else. Nearly there, I think.'

He was almost running through a long cloister. I had never been to this part of the palace before and there was no-one around.

'But what about Spark?' I said. 'And Lant, and Per?'

'What about them?' He hurried on. 'Perhaps if I leave it long enough they'll be embarrassed to ask. Perhaps I'll just pretend I never had another hand, they're misremembering.'

'But–'

'Here she is.' He flung open the door to a small courtyard, where Heeby was making a squeaking sound and huffing her nostrils.

'There you are,' said the dragon. 'Oh, Beloved, you took so long.'

It angered me to hear another call her that, but then all other thoughts flew out of my mind as I saw Rapskal. He had his hatchet again, and he was dressed not in armour but in similar robes to the other Elderlings. His teeth in his strange scarlet face were gritted, and his eyes shone with what looked like madness. I rushed to get between him and the Fool.

'You're here,' he said. 'Good. Come and do it. Come and take your revenge.'

He proffered me the hatchet, handle first, and I took it, dumbfounded. I didn't understand what was happening, but if your enemy offers to disarm himself then you don't refuse.

'Here.' He rolled up his sleeve, knelt, and put his arm on a wooden block. 'Take my hand. Take my whole arm. I will not be behind her in my love.'

If your enemy offers to disarm himself … 'What?' I said.

'I told you I set no limits on my love for you,' Rapskal said. 'It is the whole of your heart, all for myself, that I seek, and I will give anything to have it.'

I recognised the words at once. My heart went cold. 'Where did you hear that?' I asked. I glanced over at the Fool. He gave no sign of having heard his own words quoted back at him. He seemed to be talking to Heeby, though neither of them spoke aloud.

Amber turned, not to me but to Rapskal. She spoke gently. 'It's all right,' she said. 'Heeby doesn't want your arm and I don't want your dragon.'

He was speaking quickly. 'I asked her to take it and she wouldn't,' he said. 'So I tried to cut it off myself and give it to her but I– I'm a coward, it seems. But you–' His gaze swung from Amber to me. 'You want revenge. I see it. I know it.'

I stared at him.

'She loves you, Rapskal,' said Amber.

'She loves you more,' he snapped back. 'No, that's not it. She _is_ you, in part. I want that. I need that. Please.'

He seemed so young then. I saw that the patches of human flesh on his strange, scaled face were soft and unlined. Almost a boy. His love for the dragon flowed over, flooding my Wit and even my dulled Skill. I pitied him.

'In time,' Amber was saying, 'you will die, and she will take your body and the two of you will become fully one. But before then you will have many decades of growing to be yourselves in the company and love of one another, of growing together, and changing one another, and every day, every year, loving one another more, more than you could possibly imagine. That is a rare and wonderful privilege, Rapskal. Not many have the chance, and you must not squander it by grasping for shortcuts.'

He hung his head, and Heeby stretched out her face to nuzzle him. Absently, he stroked her cheek.

I stared at the Fool. 'Those words,' I said. 'How did he–'

'Through me, I fear,' rumbled Heeby. 'I was thinking through some of … what I learned today. What was suddenly there in my mind. About love. Thoughts not dragon-like at all. Strange. I was only trying to understand, and marvelling at how I _could_ understand things now. I suppose he overheard my thoughts, because then he was saying those beautiful and terrible words, and then he was saying mad things, awful things. I … I think I have harmed many people today, and I am sorry.'

The Fool squinted in my direction, almost as though they could see me. 'What _is_ she talking about? What words?'

The boon was sought and more than granted later that evening, and our treasures were all safely packed up. The liquid Skill – the dragon silver, as they called it. The vials of Heeby's blood, freely given. The box with a few precious scales. The Eldering robes.

Through some Elderling magic, the bath-water had remained hot. 'Seriously though,' Fool-Amber said, stretching their head back and enjoying the steam. 'What on earth did she mean? I know it's something to do with the memories I lost to her, but why won't you tell me?' Somehow, her bandaged left arm, draped on the side of the bath, looked more elegant than awkward.

I swallowed. 'It was from an unpleasant conversation,' I said, relishing the heat of the water that surrounded us, the scents of lavender and rose. 'I would have given anything to take back what I said to you that day. You yourself said–' I swallowed. 'Doomed. That's what you said, that now we are both doomed to recall it forever. And now you're not, and I won't take that away from you.'

'Ugh,' they said. 'You are being cryptic. You sound like me.' They lifted a slender leg out of the bath and wriggled their toes. 'We're turning to prunes,' they announced. Time for bed, I think.'

Healing, that had been Heeby's other gift. Not much healing: she had no experience and was afraid to make things worse. But Amber-Fool said she had taken the edge of the pain, and when I changed the bandages, I saw that the wound was starting to heal, with no sign of infection.

I helped my friend out of the bath and wrapped them in a warmed towel. 'Time for bed?' I said.


End file.
